Faculty-student partnerships also contributed
to a PBS prime-time television special. Astronomy students working with
professor Larry Molnar took stunning photographs of the planets Venus
and Jupiter using the college's telescope, a digital camera, a computer,
and a special astronomy software package. Some of these images were used
by PBS for the October 29, 2002, program, Galileo's Battle for the
Heavens.

It is interesting to note that since the airing of that show, and thanks
to a National Science Foundation grant, the college was able to purchase
two new telescopes.
One was installed on campus this March; the other was installed this summer
at Rehoboth Christian School near Gallup, New Mexico. The New Mexico telescope
can be controlled by Calvin students via the Internet. It is exciting
to think about the images that present and future faculty-student teams
will find with this new equipment!

This year, the collaborative dynamic between Calvin faculty and students
was evident even in our expanded facilities and special events.

It speaks volumes about Calvin's approach to teaching that the lobby
of the DeVos Communication Center—a place full of cutting-edge electronic
communication resources—contains a "forum" lecture area
where students and faculty learn together through traditional face-to-face
dialogue. The forum typifies the emphasis on faculty-student exchange.
Likewise, the Prince Conference Center was built to encourage thoughtful,
collaborative scholarship in a retreat setting.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls came to Grand Rapids, they arrived largely
due to the efforts of former college and seminary professor Bastiaan Van
Elderen. Again, there's an inter-generational teaching lesson: Van Elderen's
student, Calvin alumnus and Notre Dame professor James Vander Kam, is
now a leading scrolls scholar whose work benefits that of current Calvin
religion professors Dan Harlow and Ken Pomykala. All four professors guided
alumni and friends through the exhibit on a special February 2003 evening
at the Van Andel Museum Center. Completing the educational circle, Professor
Harlow took the students from his Dead Sea Scrolls class to the event
with him.

It is my most important task to make certain that the finest Reformed
Christian teachers make Calvin their educational and scholarly home and
continue the inter-generational inspiration for service that I mentioned
earlier. This is not a simple assignment. Because the professors we wish
to have at Calvin are such excellent teachers, researchers, writers, and
scholars, the competition for them from other institutions is often intense.
And because Calvin does not compromise either teaching or scholarship,
the workload for Calvin professors is heavier than that of their peers
at most other institutions.

We need the unwavering support of alumni and friends of Calvin to provide
faculty compensation and resources, making this campus a fertile ground
for the best Christian learning and scholarship anywhere. As president,
I will always be asking those who love the college to encourage our professors
through faculty research grants, endowed chairs, salary and sabbatical
support, equipment and technological aids, and other means. Doing so ensures
the faculty-student relationship that produces the Christian leaders of
tomorrow.

I understand this to be a challenge that will never go away; yet it is
also our most enriching challenge. Those of you who are alumni of Calvin—or
grateful Calvin parents—know well the difference one gifted and
interested professor can make in a young person's life.

The beloved professor, scholar, and writer Lewis Smedes, a 1985 Distinguished
Alumnus, passed away suddenly last December. Lew had just finished his
latest book, a memoir titled My God and I (Eerdmans, 2002).
In it, he traces his heritage and life-forming experiences, including
his time as a student at Calvin. What Lew said he learned at Calvin in
the early 1940s remains our guiding mission today:

But all of [my professors] owned the Calvinist ‘world and life
view.' Faith in Christ not only gave us hope for life in heaven, it gave
us a point of view for valuing life on earth....

This is the Calvinism [creation, fall, redemption, restoration] to
which I was converted in college. It is the faith that has sustained my
spirit ever since. I cherish it because it carries a magnificent hope
inside of it.

Please encourage our Calvin College faculty members as they continue
teaching and modeling this life-changing perspective, inspiring young
minds and hearts to be about God's work of renewal in his world. Our world
needs this message and these workers desperately. Together, we will send
more ambassadors of grace into many corners of the kingdom.